Conjecture & Confession
by Nayeliq1
Summary: When Edward Ferrars is released from the burden he thought to spend his whole life carrying, all he can think of is the eldest Miss Dashwood. He is finally free to confess what he had been forced to hold back until now, but with her still convinced he is married, can he be fortunate enough to win her affection or is he risking the one friendship more dear to him than anything else?


_This is a Oneshot to rewrite the end for Edward and Elinor from "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen. As Austen, true to what was in the sense of propriety in her period, never writes really detailed scenes of love declarations etc, I wanted to give it a try myself because I love the book and especially this couple so much. _

_I was inspired by 1995's movie "Sense and Sensibility", written by the wonderful Emma Thompson. I adore her and loved the adaption, so some of the lines are taken from the screenplay or may at least resemble it, although I don't own anything, of course._

_And finally, I just wanted to thank anyone who shares my love for Jane Austen, S&S and/or Emma's wonderful screenplay! I'm so happy that there are people like you and grateful for every single person who cares to read my writing attempts. _

_I'm German and always trying to develop and improve my writing, so if you have comments or maybe notes concerning the story, the language, the style or whatever, feel free to tell me - I'm always appreciating feedback very much! __Thanks!_

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Edward Farrars had never been a man of words, let alone speeches and confessions, and yet, he feared they might be the only way to right the most egregious wrong of his lifetime.  
He walked towards the Dashwood house, emotions and thoughts muddled and confused, but no less determined. When the maid told him they weren't at home, his first reaction was relief, then disappointment, soon replaced by a tensed anticipation when he heard that the eldest Miss Dashwood had stayed behind and could be found in the garden if he wanted to wait for the rest of the family to return.  
Did he want to? He couldn't deny the feeling of utter fear he experienced whenever he thought about what he had to do. He couldn't stand the thought of seeing the anger and hatred in the eyes of the family he valued above any other, and yet he couldn't blame them either if he would be faced with this very probable reaction. But the simple possibility of seeing her was enough to let his fear make way for hope.  
He had known his errors from the beginning, that he was doomed to marry a woman he didn't love, but without knowing what real love felt like, it hadn't been quite so piercing until he first laid eyes on Miss Elinor Dashwood.  
He had been painfully aware of the duties that honour had imposed on him, but still, he couldn't help gravitating towards her. She was subtle, yet wise. Mature, yet humorous. Witty, beautiful, responsible...simple, but simply perfect.

He could feel his heart pounding faster when he saw her, kneeling in the garden, working concentratedly with her back to him. He was almost afraid of approaching her, for he was sure she must be able to hear his heartbeat, loud as it was in his ears, but there had always been a strange sort of invisible force that seemed to pull him towards her and it was working reliably as ever. She didn't hear him coming until he stood directly behind her and he was glad about it because it gave him the chance to gather himself to the best of his ability before he finally drew her attention to his presence.

„Miss Dashwood."

„Mr Ferrars!", Elinor exclaimed in surprise as she stood up and turned around to face the man she had both feared and longed to see.  
"I'm so sorry...I didn't know you were coming..."

"That's my fault", he interrupted her apologetically, "I have to admit that I neglected to announce my arrival in advance."

"A dear friend to the family such as yourself is always welcome to visit, Mr Ferrars", Elinor assured him.  
_Friends, yes..._, he repeated in thoughts. It was his worst fear that he was going to endanger this friendship if he really managed to do what he had come for. What was he supposed to do if she turned him away? But as long as there was a chance for his request to be accepted, he knew he would never find peace as long as he didn't try.

"A friendship I value above all others", he said truthfully and watched a smile appear on Elinor's lips, although it seemed kind of sad to him, but perhaps he was just imagining it.  
She didn't know how to reply, so she quickly changed subject to something far less risky in her state of emotion.

"My mother and my sisters went for a walk, I fear, and with Marianne, you can never tell how long it will take them to return", she therefore explained politely and he nodded.

"I know, your maid told me, but...I hoped that I could wait nevertheless if you'll allow me to stay."

"Of course", she said in a sort of nervous anticipation, afraid of what he might be going to tell her, but still unable to suppress this tiny spark of hope that was breaking its way through to her heart at the sight of him - she knew that it wasn't a reasonable feeling in this kind of situation, but just this one time she didn't seem to be able to find support in her usually so reliable sense.

"It was actually you above all I came to see...", Edward admitted shyly, glancing to the ground, "although I'm always looking forward to meeting your mother and sisters, of course", he added quickly. Elinor smiled at him and turned her gaze down as well, where it fell on the apron, covered in dirt, she was still wearing.

"Oh, goodness", she exclaimed as she remembered her appearance, "what must I look like? I was just gardening when you arrived...", Elinor tried to explain, "If I had known that you wanted to pay us a visit I wouldn't have-...I'm sorry, if you'll just let me change-"

"Oh, but there's no need, Miss Dashwood", Edward tried to soothe her, "not for me. Really, you look lovely...as...always...", he assured and trailed off, embarrassed when he realised what had just trembled from his lips. Elinor blushed.

"You're too kind, Mr Ferrars", she said evasively to cover up her own embarrassment.

"Not at all", he replied, obviously uncomfortable as well. He cleared his throat in an attempt to gather himself and continued after some seconds of awkward silence.

"Would you give me the honour of joining me for a walk then, Miss Dashwood? Until the others return?"

"I would be delighted", she smiled at him and they began to stroll around the garden, side by side, both careful not to touch each other accidentally.

"And how is Mrs Ferrars?", Elinor dared to ask after a while, feeling obliged to make enquiries about Lucy, although the thought of her being "Mrs Ferrars" let her heart ache.

"Very well, thank you", Edward replied shortly. Elinor had hoped that he would lead the conversation further, in whichever direction, but when he stayed silent, she was forced to continue herself.

"And is Mrs Ferrars already at the parish?", she asked therefore.

"At the-..no..no my-my mother is in London", he said and seemed to be truly bewildered by the question.

"I meant to enquire after...Mrs Edward Ferrars", Elinor added quietly, eyes lowered, unable to look at him.

"Mrs-...", he replied a bit startled, breaking off for a second, before he slowly continued, "Wait, but...then..does that mean-..you haven't heard yet?", he stuttered, trying to understand what was happening and to find the thread again.  
"Of course..of course, it must be you of all people-", Elinor heard him mutter to himself.

"I'm sure you mean my brother, you mean Mrs Robert Ferrars", Edward finished then, a bit more confident.

"Mrs Robert Ferrars?" Now it was Elinor's turn to be confused.

"Yes..ehm...", Edward started an attempt to explain, suddenly nervous again as he did so.  
"Yes, I received a letter from...Miss Steele - Mrs Ferrars I should say - in which she informed me that her affections had passed from me..to..my brother, Robert...", he began and Elinor felt her heart flutter at those words.  
"And under the given...circumstances of my fortune...", Edward continued, "I thought it more.. honourable to release her from our..engagement. However, they got married last weekend and are now on their way to Plymouth, to the estate of Mr Pratt, her uncle..you may recall his name?", he added, remembering when he had tried to tell Elinor about Lucy before Fanny had interrupted them. Elinor simply nodded, not finding the strength to say anything yet - too many emotions were rushing through her at once.

"The news has already been spread so I was in the assumption that you must have heard as well", Edward finally ended and waited nervously for her reaction.

"I didn't", Elinor almost whispered, her eyes fixed on a point in the air in front of her.  
"But that means you're...", she continued after some seconds, raising her gaze to look at him for the first time, and he could hear a tremble in her voice, "you're not married."

"No", Edward confirmed calmly and let his gaze wander into the distance, for looking at her would have been too much, regarding what he was about to say next.  
"And that was the reason for my visit, actually, I-" He broke off when he heard the sound of a suppressed sob that caused him to look back at Elinor. She had put one of her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound that she couldn't stop escaping, her eyes were pressed close but he could see some tears streaming out nevertheless.

"Miss Dashwood?", Edward said questioningly, shocked by the view in front of him when she threw a quick glance at him with watery eyes.  
"Miss Dashwood..", he tried again, but she just waved her hand at him and turned away, signalising him that he couldn't do anything to help.

"Miss Dashwood...Elinor", Edward said, surprised that he managed his voice to sound as firm as it did. He wasn't exactly sure how to deal with the situation, didn't know how he should react - especially as he stood in front of a woman he would never have expected to ever lose countenance - but going on with the explanation he had planned seemed to be the only thing that came to his mind...and, by all means, it was better than staying silent and having to watch the scene.

"Elinor, I came here to explain me to you, to you and your family, but to you in the first place", he began therefore, while Elinor kept shaking with her back turned to him, but he knew that she was listening closely to his words by the way she had stiffened slightly when he had used her first name.  
"I feel like I owe you an explanation, and although you must know that I'm here without assuming that it might change anything, I still wish-...I hope that you may understand how I came to be in this situation..." He paused for a second, wondered where it might be best to begin, for he wanted her to truly understand, hoping that it might help to make her forgive him.

"Elinor, I met Lucy when I was very young...I was under the care of her uncle, had no contact with other women, no one to compare her to, so it may have been only natural that she seemed me to be the most perfect creature I had ever met..." Knowing that was no excuse, he quickly went on.  
"Looking back I feel foolish to have thought that I loved her...I knew that whatever I had once felt had vanished a long time ago, even before I met you, but now I can say with all honesty and certainty that I've never really loved her, not even at the moment we got engaged. I thought I did, of course, having no experience with the feeling, but by now I know..." Surely, he thought, Elinor had to be aware that she had been the reason for this certainty...but if she didn't, he would make it clear.  
"I feel stupid for having felt such...foolish inclination... ", he protested again, pausing before he could go on with what he felt was where he had wronged her most, her and her whole family.  
"And I have to apologize", he continued then, "my behaviour at Norland was very wrong...not telling anyone I was already promised while spending so much time with you... Surely, to your mother at least, it must have given the impression-..." He struggled to find the right words to express himself properly.  
"I felt that it was wrong and maybe even...dangerous", he tried, hoping that she would understand his meaning, "but I simply couldn't find the will or strength to break the contact, convincing myself that it was my heart alone that I was risking." Edward paused once more and took a deep breath.  
"I've come here with no expectations", he assured once more, "only to confess, now that I'm at liberty to do so, that, although my hand was already taken, my heart is..and always will be..yours." He fell silent and felt a wave of relief wash over him after having finally done what his heart had wished to do for such a long time.  
Elinor had still turned her back to him, her shoulders slightly shaking through muffled sobs, although somehow the sound seemed different to him, but that might have been his imagination again. His intuition told him to comfort and soothe her, but realising that it wouldn't be appropriate for him to do so as the things stood between them, he felt that there was nothing for him to be done at the moment than to leave her time and space to think and calm.

"I-I'm sorry if I've disturbed you, Miss Dashwood, I know that you can't have been expecting me to-...", he trailed off and cleared his throat. "I feel like I should go now, but I will return later, if you'll allow me to..if only to pay my tribute to your family. I hope that you'll think about my words and that you'll find them to be earnest and sincere, but know that one word from you suffices to make me stay silent and never bother you again. Good day, Miss Dashwood."

Elinor heard his steps move away until she could barely hear them. She cursed herself for not having been able to control herself - it was so unlike her to lose her countenance like that, especially in front of someone else, someone who wasn't even part of her family. She had always been proud of her capacity to keep her feelings to herself and now, at the very moment she would have needed this talent more than ever, it failed her. But Elinor knew why, and although she wished it wasn't so, she knew that she simply couldn't have prevented it. Even now, she was still struggling to calm herself, on the inside as on the outside, to stop the tears from falling and her thoughts from running wild. She knew she couldn't stay here forever, and she didn't want to either. Edward had finally confessed what she had always silently hoped for, but he still seemed to be uncertain about Elinor's feelings in return. So she gathered herself as quickly as possible, wiped her eyes and followed the direction she thought to have heard his footsteps vanish.

She saw him in the distance as she neared the house and her pace quickened without her noticing until she ran.  
"Mr Ferrars!", she called to draw his attention towards her, for he was walking in the opposite direction.  
"Mr Ferrars!...Edward!" He turned around only moments before she reached him.

"Wait, I-I wanted...", Elinor began, suddenly very nervous, now that she stood in front of him. "I wanted to apologize", she said, because the words that she had actually wanted to say seemed to be stuck in her throat.  
"I'm not sure what came over me..." That was a lie, she knew exactly, but caught in her habit of keeping feelings to herself, she was a bit embarrassed by her behaviour.  
"You know that I'm usually not the person to demonstrate their feelings so...openly", she added, hoping that he would understand her struggle, as she knew him to be very much like her himself. He nodded and Elinor managed a shy smile in return.  
"It was just-..You see, I couldn't-..", she stuttered, unable to find the right words. Edward couldn't stand seeing his usually so composed Elinor in this state of self-distress.

"Please, Miss Dashwood", he assured her warmly, "there's no need for explanations on your side. None at all, believe me.."

"But still", she interrupted him, "I want to explain it nevertheless if you're willing to hear it."  
He said nothing, but that was already enough for her to read as consent.

"When you told me you were not married I-...", she began, but realising that she had to go further back to make him understand, she broke off and started over again.  
"You see, when we heard that Mr Ferrars and Miss Steele were married...of course we assumed that it must be you they were talking about...and I was...downcast, to say the least...", she admitted quietly.  
"But I don't want you to think that I blamed you", Elinor immediately went on when she saw the look on his face, "for not telling us at Norland or anything else - it was my fault at least as much as it was yours." Edward opened his mouth to contradict her, but she quickly continued before he had the chance to do so.  
"No, no really, I know what you're going to say", she assured him, "but please, let me finish." She waited politely until he nodded and surprised Edward by what she revealed to him then.  
"You may not know it, but Lucy told me about your engagement...when we met her at Sir John's. So from this moment on it was me and me alone to blame for the fact that I didn't-...", she broke off, obviously struggling to find the right words just as he had before, and he was startled by the desperate tone her voice was taking. "I knew you weren't free and even if you were there had been no promises or understandings between us that would have justified my hopes...and still..it was there... I knew it wasn't reasonable, I knew it had no future, but I couldn't help it. So all the time knowing about your engagement until the day that I heard about the marriage, I had been hoping...I don't even know what exactly I was hoping for, simply hoping that perhaps somehow...", she paused for a moment, knowing that there was no need to bring the sentence to an end, for she saw the hope she had kept in her heart was mirrored in his eyes.  
"But then I learned that..there's a painful difference...between the expectation of an unpleasant event and its final certainty. Hearing about the marriage - in one moment all this hope that I had somehow kept up...it was all gone...and I was-..I felt like...a part of me had died with it...But I couldn't allow myself to let it show", she smiled sadly. "You know what my mother and sisters are like, especially Marianne, they would have gone through everything I felt with me, so I hid it", she explained, every bit the extraordinary selfless creature he knew her to be. "I didn't want to cause my family any more pain. And I'm very good at hiding..." Something they had in common.  
"I'm not sure how I managed it, but I did...until today..when you told me you were not married-...It was like-...just everything I had locked within me, all the pain and sorrow and despair, it just broke its way out and I couldn't stop it", she finished, blushing, a shy smile on her lips and let her gaze wander down to her hands she hadn't even been aware of she was wringing nervously.

"Does that mean...?", she heard Edwards voice after a few moments of silence. "May I understand this as a sign that I might hope to find my feelings reciprocated?" She couldn't help but smile widely at his hopeful innocence.

"Yes, Mr Ferrars", she confirmed, "even more than hope."

"Then, Miss Dashwood...", he continued a bit more confident, but it wouldn't have been her Edward if he wouldn't still have struggled with his words, "I-I know I don't have much to offer, you know about the current events concerning my...financial status. But..." He paused, looked in her face to find it full of hope, encouraging him to go on. "Should I really be so fortunate to have gained your affection and if you would allow me...-", he trailed off, gathering himself.

"Elinor, I've never been a man of speeches", he said then and she smiled knowingly. "All I can say is that I have nothing to give but myself and my heart along with the promise to love you - and that I will, however your answer may be", he told her truthfully. "So, if you would be willing to accept me and my poor attempt of a proposal, I would truly be the most blessed man who ever lived."

"Yes", Elinor replied without hesitation, "yes, of course.."  
She felt her eyes stinging with tears again and wiped them with the back of her hand when she saw that Edward held a handkerchief out to her, white with three letters in one of the corners - E.C.F. stitched in blue. The sight brought a smile to her lips and she reached into the pocket of her dress.

"Thank you", Elinor said while she pulled out the one he had once given to her. "But I already have one..."  
Almost absent-mindedly, she drove her thump over the embroidery, remembering the countless times she had done so when she could find a moment of lonely silence in her room.

"You still have it...", Edward said, sounding surprised and delighted in equal measure. In return, Elinor only smiled that he could have thought otherwise, since this little piece of fabric had been like an anchor to her during the past few months.

"I must look terrible", she laughed lightly while she dabbed away the wetness she could still feel on her cheeks. "Red eyes and nose probably..."

"You could never look less than beautiful", Edward said unexpectedly, surprising them both with his boldness, but he didn't feel the urge to draw back.

"Marianne has always been the pretty one", Elinor replied modestly, but smiling nevertheless.

"I didn't call you pretty", he detected with a confidence he didn't know he even possessed, "I believe the word was _beautiful_."  
She didn't know how to answer, so she decided to take the compliment for once, put the handkerchief back in her pocket and straightened herself.

"Shall we continue our walk then?", she suggested, eager to change the subject and watched happily how Edward held out his arm to her. She took it gladly and they strolled on in silence for a while, both lost in thoughts and the blissful feeling of the other's closeness.

"You must remind me to thank your friend the Colonel for his generosity", Edward said suddenly. Elinor wondered why he hadn't done so already, knowing him to be the kind of person who repayed their debts if they could.  
"I already wanted to do so" he confirmed her thoughts, "I didn't want to seem ungrateful, but-...When you told me of the Colonel's offer I...became convinced that you wanted me to marry Lucy", he explained to Elinor's astounding, "and that...you and Colonel Brandon..."

"Me and Colonel Brandon?" She couldn't suppress a little amused laugh at this idea. Edward shrugged his shoulders apologetically.  
"Yes...and I simply couldn't get it over with. Attempting to thank him for making it possible for me to marry the woman I did not love while convinced he had designs upon the one that I- I did...and do...", he tailed off, but his eyes didn't leave Elinor's face, lightened up by a smile that formed at his words. While she looked back at him, she noticed that something flickered in his eyes, as if a thought that had occurred to him was showing in them, but she couldn't figure out what it might be.

"Could you...?", he began then, suddenly sounding nervous again as he broke off. He opened his mouth without saying anything, but she thought to noticed how he slightly leaned towards her, or maybe she was just imagining it?

"Excuse me...", he whispered then, and Elinor held her breath when he finally lifted his hands to cup her face. She closed her eyes when she felt the soft touch of his lips on hers, only for a second before he already drew back, but she kept them closed, not wanting the moment to end already. Edward saw it along with the dreamy smile on her face when he leaned back just enough to look at her, see her reaction - and all fears of impropriety were washed away at once. With an expression matching her own, he kissed her again, felt how Elinor's fingers touched his own around her neck, gently holding his hand in place- both caught in a sort of blissful disbelief that everything they had dreamed of had become reality just as they thought all hope was lost.

Finally, Elinor discovered, the expectation of a _pleasant_ event was nothing against its final certainty either.


End file.
